He played for India in three Asiads – Tokyo in 1958, Jakarta in 1962 where India bagged the gold in football, and Bangkok in 1966. An Indian team without PK was unthinkable those days. He represented the Indian football team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics that saw India reaching the semifinals. Four years later, at the Rome Olympics, he captained India and scored the equalizer against France in a cliff-hanger that was finally clinched 2-1 by the French. He was also instrumental in India’s impressive showing at the Merdeka Cup in Kuala Lumpur, in 1959, 1964 and 1965. His retirement in 1967 due to nagging injuries, however, failed to subdue the passion he had for football all his life. He coached both East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. His indisputable acumen as a football coach was evident when under his tutelage, Mohun Bagan went on to win the IFA Shield, the Rovers Cup and the Durand Cup – the first-ever triple crown feat recorded by any team in India in a footballing season. In 1972, he became the coach of the Indian team and kept coaching the national side until 1986. He had also won the International Fair Play Award from the Olympic Committee, a feat no other Indian football has been able to achieve to date. In 1999, Banerjee again took up the post of the technical director of the Indian Football team.

Clearly, the best shooter Indian football has ever had, PK had become a part of the popular Kolkata Maidan refrain, ‘PK-Chuni-Balaram’. He was an immensely popular football coach and manager, turning fortunes around for team with his keen sense of football and at times, brilliant playing strategies. PK Banerjee passed away in 2020, the same year another football legend, Chuni Goswami, joined him in the Elysian Fields, with only Balaram remaining as the last vestiges of the shining trio that once dazzled the football pitch.